'Roly Mo' Socks

Last night I finished knitting a pair of socks made from a really groovy striped yarn. The purple and green stripes remind me of Roly Mo, the similarly-striped storytelling mole from The Fimbles. Please click here if you're wondering what I'm on about .....

I bought the yarn from Sunnyside Ellen on Etsy and it's really nice stuff to knit with. The colours are very vibrant, more so than in the photo. I had to take my sock pictures in the warm comfort of the lounge today as the stone floor in the conservatory was way too chilly to be grovelling around on. Brrrrr! Please click here to visit Ellen's Etsy shop and click here to visit her blog.

I think that's about all from me at the moment. I settled down to make beads yesterday only to find that the glass I wanted to use was totally unusable but I'm not going to rant about it. Instead I shall take a deep breath and move on. Seeing as the next few days are going to be stupidly busy for me I don't think that there will be any more beads this side of Christmas. Oh, and don't forget that you've only got a couple more days to enter the prize draw. I'm drawing the winner on Sunday night and to be honest, I don't think it's going to be from the Lego Tombola. I have so many entries that the slips of paper won't tumble about as they should. I'm going to ask Dad Lego Engineer to see if he can build a bigger, mark two version so we shall wait and see .....

A Bit Of Glimmer

I've been playing about with fine silver and I've made some more 'Storm Cloud' beads (always popular) and some similar to them but with a dark treacle-coloured base. Yum!

These will be for sale on my website tonight at 8.30pm (UK time).

Mince Pies

I got up early this morning (because it's that time of year when you just need to make the days as long as you can) to bake some mince pies.

A few weeks back I made some mincemeat and jarred it all up ready for the mince pie making so all I had to do this morning was whip up a bit of pastry and voila - yumma, 100% homemade mince pies! I've just had one warm from the oven with a cup of tea and I have to say they are a little bit nice.

If you're planning to make mince pies, give the homemade mince meat thing a go. It's dead simple, makes the kitchen smell unbelievably festive and tastes so much nicer than the shop-bought stuff.

I used Delia Smith's recipe which can be found here and I stored mine in those lovely old-fashioned preserving jars with the metal clippy fasteners. I gave a jar to my sister Sally and I think she got more excited about the jar than she did about its contents!

If you click on the picture at the top of the post it'll open a desktop-wallpaper-sized image. If you like, right click the image and select 'Set As Background' and you can have Christmassy mince pies decorating your monitor screen!

December Prize Draw

I've got a bit of a different prize for you this month. As it's the end of the year and I'm feeling (a little bit) festive I thought I'd make the prize a good'un and offer one of you the chance to come and melt glass with me in the New Year.

So if you've always fancied having a go at making beads, or if you already do and you would like to come and learn some new glassy things with me then leave a comment on this post or zap me an email and I will put everyone's names in the Lego Tombola for a chance to win.

The beadmaking session will be a five hour one (normally £130.00) and the resulting winner and I will organise a suitable date for next year.

I will draw the winner on Sunday 20th December.

Now, the draw is open to anyone anywhere BUT if you're not in the UK then I must stress that I am not going to pay for anyone's hotels, flights, ferries or other means of travel so please only enter the prize draw if you're up for travelling to me in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

Thank you and good luck!

I am working, honest!

I may well be quiet on the bead and blog front but rest assured I'm busy working. I've caught up with all my Cupcake orders which means I am now free to make my 'normal' beads. The batch of cakes in the (very grainy) photograph above have all been made into pendants and dangles and are now winging their way to their new homes.

I should have some new beads for sale on Monday or maybe Tuesday next week .....